Brendan Miller was a key cog for the IceRays last season on their run to the best season in the team's history as a junior franchise. This season, though, he has the added role of being the team captain.

Miller was elected captain by his teammates before the season. Now the North Tonawanda, New York, native has the task of bringing together a team with a mix of veterans and new players ready to continue the team's success.

“You’ve just got to try to balance everything and keep everybody kind of together and going on the same page,” Miller said.

The IceRays put together its deepest playoff run in its junior franchise history last year but lost a handful of key players, including former team captain Mason Krueger, who is now at West Point, and goaltender Tomas Vomacka, who is now playing in the United States Hockey League after being drafted by the Nashville Predators.

Miller, though, is back with a group of returning players like forward David Thomson, defenseman Matt Acciaioli and goaltender Camden Burggrabe.

“We really just try to let guys know what (coach Brad Flynn) expects and what the team expects and help guys who may not be doing the right things, say, ‘Hey this is what we need to be doing,’" Miller said. It’s kind of tough sometimes and we need to keep working and communication is the key.”

This weekend’s home games are the last contests at the American Bank Center for the team until they return home five weeks later Nov. 10. Corpus Christi will play 10 straight road games in that time frame.

“We had a lot of jump in our first regular season game and a lot of that was just pure adrenaline,” Flynn said. “As the last two weeks have kind of went on we saw where we are at in terms of conditioning.

"Really, the training camp thing with Hurricane Harvey and the ice being out, we were really just in our second week of training by the time we got into the regular season," he said. "The positives are we got better every single day.”